Karmageddon

Deal yourself out a pump inducing, burn generating arm circuit. This is KARMAGEDDON!!

Recently I wrote about using a pack of playing cards to generate a circuit (The Karma Circuit – CLICK HERE). In that post I suggested that the Karma Circuit could be used for a full on arm workout. I pride myself on the fact that whenever I suggest an exercise, dietary idea or workout plan to a client I have given it a try myself first to ‘test’ the effects. I hadn’t however tested an all arm exercise Karma Circuit. For days I have been wracked with guilt and anxiety, so I decided to give it a go and report back my findings. What resulted can only be described as KARMAGEDDON.

The set up

I had to pick 4 exercises for my circuit. I decided to go for 2 compound arm exercises (dips DIAMONDS and narrow chins HEARTS) and 2 isolation exercises (barbell curls CLUBS and overhead dumbbell extensions (OH ext) SPADES). In the Karma Circuit post I suggested to use Jacks, Queens and Kings and 15, 20 and 25 reps respectively. I didn’t fancy the idea of these high reps when using chins so I decided on calling Jacks 11, Queens 12 and Kings 13. I also had to choose an appropriate weight for the isolation exercises. I went for a weight that I knew I could do for 10reps, but would find hard for the 11,12 and 13 rep sets. It should be noted that the total volume for each exercise (the total reps performed) will be 91reps, which is quite high. So, a weight should be chosen with that in mind. 65% of your 1 rep max (if you know it for isolation exercises) or the max weight you can hit 15reps with would be a good place to start.

The workout is basically 91 chin ups, 91 dips, 91 curls and 91 overhead dumbbell extensions (OH ext). The reason it is ‘fun’ is because the reps will come at you in a random order. Wacky stuff. You’ll get some sets of just 1 or 2 reps, while others will push you to 12 or 13.

I chose to perform my workout as 13 sets of 4 cards; essentially 13 small 4 exercise circuits. In between each 4some, I did some press ups (to contribute to another challenge I have been set) and an ab exercise. This gave me a little break from the arm work and helped me stay focused. NLPers would call this chunking.At this point, if you have no idea what I am on about, make sure you’ve read the link I provided up above.

Here is how my workout ended up looking (beware, this part is RIVETING STUFF)